Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt, William Max Nelson, eds. The French
Revolution in Global Perspective. Ithaca Cornell University Press,
2013. vi + 236 pp. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8014-5096-9; $24.95
(paper), ISBN 978-0-8014-7868-0.
Reviewed by Edward J. Kolla (Georgetown University)
Published on H-Diplo (August, 2013)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach
Global (French) Revolution
Pierre Serna ends this volume with the provocative claim that
"[r]evolution never repeats itself, because it never ends" (p. 182).
Recently, many parts of the world have been gripped (again? as
always?) by popular revolt and revolution. With their reach extending
from the Middle East, across North Africa, to South America, and
beyond, it is indeed timely to investigate perhaps the prototypical
revolution, the French one of 1789, in a global perspective.
This fine collection of essays--edited by Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt,
and William Max Nelson--was not necessarily inspired by current
events. Instead, its authors seek to examine "the specifically French
responses to the process of globalization" with the aim of explaining
why the French Revolution, among so many others, had the most
"far-reaching effects" (p. 4). They contend that the "causes,
internal dynamics, and consequences of the French Revolution all grew
out of France's increasing participation in the process of
globalization" (p. 4). Such an approach and argument is not entirely
surprisingly given, for example, the recent emphasis on
Saint-Domingue in French Revolution studies but also a trend towards
the global/international/transnational in the historical discipline
more generally. Even more boldly, the editors assert that by
examining "a global framework" it is possible to bring "back social
and economic factors" to the study of the Revolution "[w]ithout
abandoning the political and cultural emphasis" and thereby bridge
the two main historiographical and methodological approaches that
have bifurcated since the Bicentenary (p. 5). As Michael Kwass
asserts in his own piece, reiterating this goal of bringing economic
and political cultural analysis together, "[t]he stakes could not be
higher" (p. 15).
These essays began as conference presentations at the 2011 meeting of
the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era in Tallahassee and at times
reflect their origins: some lack the depth of original research that
many readers may expect or wish to see; others are "safe" treatments
of material that may not be novel or ground-breaking. Sometimes an
essay's link to the theme of globalization or global perspective is
tenuous. Moreover, as anyone who has ever tried to organize or
comment on a panel that brings together studies linked by such broad
signifiers as "the French Revolution" and "globalization" knows,
there is extremely wide purview here for subject matter and
methodology. One consequence of this diversity is that the grouping
of the essays into three sections (or panels?) can seem confusing if
not arbitrary. That all said, some of the essays are, individually,
absolutely first-rate pieces of scholarship and, taken as a group,
the collection makes for stimulating and engaging reading.
The first part of the book looks at the origins or causes of the
Revolution in a global context, which is the clearest of the three
divisions. In chapter 1, Kwass describes how French participation in
the global economy, and particularly the regulation of New World
tobacco and Asian cloth, promoted smuggling and clandestine trade. He
argues that this "underground economy" stimulated popular protest,
thereby delegitimizing state institutions that proved in desperate
need of reform (p. 16). His essay, which seemed to me a clever but
not overwrought twist on Robert Darnton's treatment of the "literary
underground" (_The Literary Underground of the Old Regime_, 1982)
included some fascinating insights--for example, that tax rebellions
linked to repression of contraband trade were the most common form of
revolt in France between 1660 and 1789.
Hunt's contribution in chapter 2, "The Global Financial Origins of
1789," also contains moments of great perspicacity. Although the
fiscal crisis of 1787-89 caused the Revolution, she claims that we do
not yet know what really caused that fiscal crisis. In a wonderful
reversal of received thinking, she argues that it was precisely
_because_ Jacques Necker and Charles-Alexandre de Calonne were so
successful at raising money in the early 1780s, "that helped bring on
the fatal crisis" later (p. 34). Two global processes impacted French
finances: in the eighteenth century, France sought to extend its
global commercial empire and was depended on international capital
markets for the funds to do so. However, the French government paid
higher rates than other governments, for a variety of reasons, and
(for some of the same reasons) it was particularly vulnerable to
speculation. Thus, in a similar conclusion to that of Kwass, Hunt
finds that the credibility more so than the balance sheet of the
French state was in the greatest distress: the "combination of
speculative excesses and the linking of them to the government ...
played a greater role than the deficit itself in bringing down" the
monarchy (p. 42).
Rounding out the "origins" section are essays by Charles Walton and
Andrew Jainchill. Walton examines how the 1786 "Eden" Treaty, named
for the chief British negotiator, which liberalized commerce between
Britain and France was a "diplomatic and economic revolution" and
thereby aims to rehabilitate it as a cause of France's later
political revolution (p. 44). He contends that liberal trade proved a
"shock" to French industry and agriculture, helping to spur demands
for political representation. Jainchill looks at the long-term
effects of the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which granted
toleration to France protestant Huguenot population, for the 1789
revolution. He describes how after their loss of rights in 1685,
refugee Huguenots undermined the absolutist French monarchy by
advocating in political writings for a more balanced, British-style
constitution; translating the works of like-minded philosophers into
French; and generally being involved in the book trade.
All four of the first chapters therefore share a similar logic with
respect to the origins of the Revolution. These essays do not
displace or upset the current belief, grounded in political cultural
analysis, that a variety of factors led to a gradual delegitimization
and discrediting of the monarchy and a concomitant rising demand for
accountability if not representation. Instead, these essays merely,
if at times brilliantly and convincingly, ask historians to look for
such factors "beyond France's borders" (p. 70).
The middle section has the most confusing title--"'Internal'
Dynamics"--even if its essays are some of the best. In his tightly
argued and widely supported chapter, Nelson encourages readers to
think about the role of the "long history of colonialism" during the
French Revolution (p. 74). He shows how revolutionary leaders such as
_abb??_ Gr??goire seized on the idea of "regeneration" (p. 75)--which
had an anthropological, ethnographic, and political history in the
French colonial context--and applied it to revolutionary France and
especially the French peasantry. Nelson goes beyond the colonies to
link these ideas not only (and not surprisingly) to Enlightenment
discourses, but also (and very impressively) the Catholic
Counter-Reformation, early modern philosophy of education, and
classical republicanism. How this dynamic is internal, and internal
to what, I do not know--but it is great history.
In chapter 6, Desan's equally excellent contribution, she
investigates how the August 1792 granting of French citizenship and
political rights to foreigners reflected the universal aspirations of
the Republic, especially as they relate to the renunciation of
offensive wars and conquests. She examines what France stood to gain
by this action, wittily characterizing her analysis not as asking
"what your country can do for foreigners" but rather "what foreigners
can do for your country" (p. 87). I will not try to lay out her
sophisticated analysis in a pithy sentence or two--not for lack of
her own clarity, on the contrary, but instead because I doubt I would
do it justice. I will, however, highlight her depiction of the
"hybrid construction" of revolutionary universality through an
interaction between local and specific peoples rather than simply on
the level of high Enlightenment philosophy, which is in my opinion
the best conceptual gem for how to approach a global perspective in
this book (p. 87).
Denise Z. Davidson's essay "Feminism and Abolitionism: Transatlantic
Trajectories" is the last chapter in part 2. She describes how the
Declaration of the Rights of Men opened up questions about the
application of rights to both women and slaves. She goes on to
investigate the connections in language and culture between
revolutionary-era feminism and abolitionism. Although this seemed to
me a simple and perhaps obvious pairing, the more I thought about it
the more I realized its simplicity is deceptive. I hope Davidson is
pursuing the topic further, especially any effects of interaction
between the two movements.
The book's third section is called "Consequences" and yet again I
found this moniker misleading and reckon it may have more
appropriately, if blandly, been labeled "Case Studies." Ian Coller
begins with an analysis of the French invasion of Egypt that,
although he does not directly contradict the Orientalist orthodoxy of
Edward Sa??d (_Orientalism_, 1978) aims to show the political and
economic links between Egypt and France prior to conquest, and the
similarities between Egypt and other French-conquered territories.
Coller's essay was the first where I really questioned some
observations: he characterizes Egypt as important because it was
Napoleon's first experience of direct rule (p. 116), although the
Corsican was very much in control in Italy; he also calls the
Egyptian expedition the "high watermark of global territorial
expansion" during the Revolution (p. 117). I would counter that
Moscow is nearly as far and, overland, reached with more difficulty,
and the campaign to retake Saint-Domingue led by Charles Leclerc in
1802 may not have been expansion per se but it was greater in both
scope and distance. I also would like to see more robust evidence for
his main assertion that we ought to view Egypt as analogous to the
Italian and Swiss Sister Republics. The latter's political systems;
legal, diplomatic, and military relationships with France; and
ultimate fates were all very different from Egypt's. That said,
Coller's overarching message--that Egypt proved that the idea of the
Grande Nation along with its emancipatory aims could be global in
reach--is a great one.
Miranda Spieler and Rafe Blaufarb provide two more global case
studies, in South and North America, respectively. Spieler examines
French Guiana, which she describes as both more legally integrated
with the Hexagon and more economically and socially separated than
most colonies. The attention to law is therefore in keeping with her
excellent 2009 article, "The Legal Structure of Colonial Rule during
the French Revolution" in _The William and Mary Quarterly_. Here, she
argues that the war exaggerated these realities, and moreover
"conferred a despotic character on revolutionary colonial regimes and
hence undermined the freedom of emancipated slaves" (p. 147).
Blaufarb meanwhile argues against the traditional view that the
French Revolutionary Wars exposed a weak and struggling new American
republic to danger. He synthesizes various treaties negotiated during
the 1790s, which ultimately benefited the United States, and argues
that war led Great Britain and Spain "to abandon their restrictive
policies [against the U.S.] thus opening the floodgates of America's
westward expansion" (p. 149). Overall, I find his analysis
compelling. However, his main piece of evidence, that news of the
Battle of Fleurus reached the Foreign Office at the same time as word
of rising tensions in America over the Ohio Valley forts, and that
French military victory therefore compelled the British finally to
come to a settlement with John Jay who arrived five days later, is
susceptible to the adage that correlation does not imply causation,
especially since most Americans at the time did not find the Jay
Treaty much of an acquiescence by Britain.
For lack of expertise and audacity, I am not going to address the
"Coda" by Pierre Serna in which he argues that "every revolution is a
war of independence"--except to remark that, having heard David
Armitage argue at the Consortium in 2009 that "every revolution is a
civil war," clearly this is a forum for big ideas!
Taken as a group this is a commendable collection, especially for its
attempt to examine the French Revolution in the context of
"globalization." However, I have three sets of queries around this
project as it is both conceived and executed. First, although the
editors in the introduction and some individual contributors make
much of the historiographical stakes (remember, they could "not be
higher") of a global perspective and how it can wed political
cultural analysis with older social and economic approaches, they do
not effectively prove why this global perspective is best or even
ideally suited to this task. Yes, some of these essays make advances
towards this goal, but no more than other current and exclusively
"domestic" research, for example recent work on the culture and
discourse of economic ideas like debt, property, and the like.
Second, the "global" frame of reference in this volume is clearly
empire. The editors argue as much in the introduction, and it is
telling that the first of only two maps is of "Empires and Colonies
in 1785" (p. 12). Empire is indeed one rubric through which to
examine global history, but it is surely not the only one. If
historians of the French Revolution are truly to engage in
conversation with and discover new insights from global history, they
will have to use other prisms of analysis that are common in that
field, such as non-imperial commodity flows; migration, either
short-term as for religious pilgrimages or longer-term; religion more
generally; natural history; and the environment.
Finally, despite its many strengths, this volume could be clearer
about whether its authors aim to examine and derive insight from
global causes, effects, and consequences; and whether "the global" is
impacting France or vice versa in all instances. In the introduction,
for example, it is implied that we need to look outside France for
the origins of the Revolution; later, that historians have only "just
begun" to examine the "the impact" of "international movements in
France" (p. 2). So, the story seems to be the impact of "the global"
on France. However, it is not necessary that global causes also imply
global effects; especially the last five chapters were as much about
France impacting "the global" as the other way around. Moreover, as
many of these fine essays show, there was clearly a global/domestic
feedback loop--global factors helping cause the outbreak of the
Revolution, which then went on to have global effects, which in turn
re-impacted France--rather than a simple transmission one way or the
other. The present day shows us as much, with the "revolutions" of
the Arab Spring both causes and effects of one another (among many,
many other causes and effects).
This may seem an obvious if nitpicky criticism and if so I mean it
only as a "next step" in the journey this volume so admirably
encourages us to take. Many of these essays are well worth reading on
their own, and so many of them assembled in one place alone makes
this book a worthwhile read. But what I appreciated the most about
this work was the sense that historians of the French Revolution are
stepping up to the eminently difficult task of teasing out the
event's complicated and complex origins and effects with a much more
global perspective than ever before.
Citation: Edward J. Kolla. Review of Desan, Suzanne; Hunt, Lynn;
Nelson, William Max, eds., _The French Revolution in Global
Perspective_. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. August, 2013.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=39141
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License.
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